Category: Politics
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Understanding that the concept of ‘valid’ is subjective, I will disclose that the following, while citing certain facts, is based on the author’s opinion.

There are many arguments against marijuana decriminalization, but are any of them valid?

As a lover of philosophy, intelligent debate, political discussion etc. I pride myself on having the integrity to admit when, even if I disagree, my opponent offers fair points and valid argumentation.

For example, I am ultimately opposed to communism, however, I am willing to concede that Karl Marx did offer some fair observation and critique of the capitalist class during the 19th century.

Marx’s theory and philosophy inspired rebuttals that spawned new generations of political and economic thought. While many philosophers and economists sharply criticized Marx, they at least saw his ideas as worthy to contend and could appreciate him as a fellow intellectual.

In the debate between anti-marijuana advocates and pro-cannabis activists, there is something that is lacking; a valid argument from the anti-marijuana campaign.

Every argument proposed by anti-marijuana advocates has either been quickly debunked as not being based in scientific/medical fact, is based in stringent morality, or relies on antiquated voodoo-pharmacology and misconception.

There’s a rich history of how marijuana became unlawful in the first place. An updated, objective analysis of marijuana, however, reveals that there really isn’t any good argument to keep it illegal.

The myths of marijuana have led to lingering societal misunderstanding. Myths that, once brought under the microscope, can be seen as no more than yesteryear’s reefer madness, dragnet paranoia and mass misinformation.

If you disagree and believe that there are valid arguments against marijuana decriminalization and legalization (for medicinal AND recreational use) then I humbly invite you to please present those arguments. I would honestly be interested in hearing what those arguments are.

I’ve searched for years to find a valid argument against marijuana decriminalization. All I have found is misinformed individuals clinging to arbitrary legislation because they were taught marijuana was bad. Belief that is rooted in a mystified detestation that dates back to an early 20th century rejection of Mexican culture and carried on with the new hatred of “hippies” and “stoners.”

Libertarianism is a controversial political philosophy with many different perceptions and interpretations. Overall, the objective of Libertarianism, as an ethos, is to combat authoritarianism and minimize the state’s involvement in arenas, like markets, that it wasn’t designed to be involved with.

In other words ‘more individual liberty, less government’.

Libertarianism itself was not constructed to be a vehicle for racial oppression, segregation or racism in general, but it is often criticized (by both the left and the right) as being an “insidious pipeline to fringe groups such as the ‘alt-right’.”

With any philosophy, there’s a risk that it can be misinterpreted and utilized for purposes other than intended. Much like how Hitler cherry-picked Nietzsche’s published and unpublished works to fortify Nazi agenda.

Many Libertarians have taken a pragmatic shift and began accepting the laws outlined in the Civil Rights act of 1964, which utilizes, at the federal level, government intervention to make it unlawful for businesses providing public accommodations (Lodging, Food, Water etc.) to discriminate against anyone based on race, sex, disability etc.

Other Libertarians argue that, just because the social outcomes are favorable, the government shouldn’t force a business to contract labor or provide services to anyone. They argue the business owner should freely associate, do business with whom they choose, and allow free market forces to dictate outcomes.

Arguments proposed by philosophers like Milton Friedman suggest that, through the free market, a business that chooses to discriminate on grounds of race or sex will suffer as a result. The businesses who take a more egalitarian approach, they argue, will succeed. Thus, the market will force out racists organically without government intervention.

A rebuttal to that argument is that there is little evidence to support the real-world probability of the free market’s success in expelling racists from holding positions in private business, particularly in the mid 20th century when Civil Rights legislation was first being drafted.

Some argue the assumption of the free market’s ability to weed out racists relies on viewing society through the eyes of progress saw after enacting civil rights legislation. In short, it is argued, that if the government never stepped in, people would’ve never changed.

As such, some Libertarians (in this case ‘classical liberals’) summoned the basic principle of increasing the liberty of the people , and conceded that civil rights legislation acted against the tyranny of the majority, and thus increased liberty overall, even though it was through government intervention.

The insider debate over the proper role of government in reference to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has spawned a revival of the question, one that has spilled out into the mainstream. (Particularly post 2016 when the LP saw an increase of attention.)

With a greater field of observation, the Libertarian party and Libertarianism in general has been called into question by skeptics, who see the disproportionate racist adherence as alarming.

It would be easier to argue that the Libertarian objective was to fortify racism in the country if the ‘Freedom of Association’ was the only proposed principle.

The overarching framework of Libertarianism opposes acts of aggression against racial minorities, women, the LGBT community, and other marginalized groups. Ideas like racial equality, liberal feminism (women’s rights), marriage equality, and other social justice issues (that are often criticized by ultra-conservatives) are all consistent with true Libertarian philosophy.

While some Libertarians’ stance against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 may be controversial and criticized, it does not inherently mean that they themselves advocate discrimination. It’s unfair to assume that they do.

There are some aspects to Libertarianism that some would deem uncomfortable, hence its overall low participation ratings, but it is most certainly not a racist political philosophy.

We are a non-partisan publication and I like to think of myself more of a ‘freethinker’. However, at the end of the day, and in the true sense of the word, I am a liberal– and I oppose Trump and the Republican party.

There’s something happening in my country that I simply cannot ignore.

Debate, discussion, and a pragmatic approach to politics is, more than I’ve ever witnessed before, taking a backseat to vilification, unprovoked violence, defamation of character and a generally vitriolic attitude towards one another.

Both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of this; drawing the conclusion of someone’s character and making brash assumptions about the individual based on one single piece of information– what their political affiliation is or who they voted for.

I do what I can to send this message to Trump supporters and conservatives as well, but sometimes people need to hear the message from their own “camp,” if you will.

What do we achieve by vilifying and ostracizing Trump supporters? What do we gain when we conclude, based on nothing more than party favoritism, that a person is a “racist,” “Nazi,” “sexist,” “homophobe,” or any number of buzzwords we can muster?

The most likely outcome is a reactionary one. One imbued in retaliatory defense and a fortification of support for Trump.

I like to talk to people. I like to have genuine conversation and see how and what people are thinking. Something interesting happens when you put aside the inflammatory antagonism; people open up.

I’ve talked to vehement Trump supporters who, at the beginning of our conversation, seemed to almost worship the guy. Once he realized that someone who was in opposition to Trump was treating him with respect and like an actual human being, the intensity of his support began to wane.

I’m not saying to be vindictive and enter into a discussion with someone to sort of trick them into changing their ideas. We have to accept that people think differently than we do, simple as that.

However, when you approach the discussion pragmatically, they may realize, on their own, that their level of support may have been heightened as an emotional response, a defensive response.

This cycle of back and forth lambasting and ad hominem attacks is counter-productive. It becomes a schoolyard of juvenile mudslinging and imbecilic banter.

We have to stop this nonsense. We have to get back to dialogue and the simple gesture of offering genuine debate.

Even if the person fits the myopic, archetypal media sensationalized image of a Trump supporter (racist, sexist, uneducated etc.) you should still be pragmatic and keep about you a sense of ethics. Ethics, as a liberal thinker, that demand thoughtful engagement and discussion from an egalitarian standpoint.

Emmy and Peabody award winning director Deeyah Khan, released a documentary in 2017, with her production company Fuuse, entitled ‘White Right: Meeting the Enemy.‘ In this documentary she would spend time with various hate groups and members of white nationalist organizations.

Deeyah Khan is a Muslim filmmaker.

I admire her courage to meet the people, who hated her, face to face, and attempted to understand their perspective and why they held their hateful beliefs.

An interesting thing happened with some of the white nationalists in the documentary. After meeting Deeyah and spending time with her, there were individuals who actually left the National Socialist movement. Their decision to leave was attributed directly to the time they spent with Deeyah.

There were people (both on the left and the right) who criticized her for her egalitarian, liberal approach.

It is, however, significant when you look at outcomes.

Her actions made more progress than all of the Molotov cocktails and mace spraying ever did from the militant left. Political violence from the left, according to academically acclaimed, Libertarian Socialist Noam Chomsky, is a “gift to the far-right and state repression“.

We need to examine our behavior and how we approach political discussion and politics in general. We’re never going to get anywhere with abrasive, personal attacks.

I encourage my fellow liberals to consider this and to spread this message.

Most of us have done it. If you frequently engage in political discourse online, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve compared something (be it a person or political group) to Hitler or the Nazis.

It’s juvenile and reactionary, but many of us are guilty of doing this. In fact, there’s something called ‘Godwin’s Law‘, which states that the longer an internet argument takes place, the more likely someone is to summon ‘Reductio ad Nazium’, or an ‘argument to Nazism’.

Now, I’m not one for rigid speech control or authoritarianism, so I’m not telling people they can’t make the comparison or use ‘Nazi’ as an insult. I do, however, think we should understand that language does have meaning and how we use language does have an impact on societal perception.

The first thing we should understand is that Nazi is an abbreviation for the political ideology known as ‘National Socialism’. This abbreviation is famously and almost ubiquitously used to describe the forces that collectively orchestrated The Third Reich, otherwise known as ‘Nazi Germany’.

Most adults have, at least, some knowledge of World War 2, Fascism, Nazism and world history between the 1920’s and 1945 . They are aware of the atrocities that took place under Hitler and the Nazis, to some degree.

The average person is less likely to know about The Ustaše, a Croatian revolutionary movement, during the same era, that was comprised of ultra-nationalist, racist, fascist terrorists who killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Romanian peoples.

The average person is also not likely to know about Unit 731 , a covert Imperial Japanese chemical and biological research unit that perpetrated, arguably, the worst war crimes in human history; they performed human vivisection and killed thousands of women, men and even infants, often without anesthetics.

You don’t hear many people, as an insult, call somebody Ante Pavelic or Shiro Ishii, but they have no quarrel with issuing the “Hitler” insult.

This is because we all know Hitler. Most of us learned about him in high school and that’s where a lot of people’s learning about World War 2 era history ended.

If your knowledge of World War 2 history goes beyond that of a high school textbook, then you’ll understand the seriousness of leveling the charge of “Nazi” against someone.

I understand the desire to toss around the insult when dealing with a particularly bigoted and ignorant person, but I would caution against using the word so lightly.

The more we use “Hitler” or “Nazi” as an insult or crass comparison, the more we trivialize the atrocities that actually took place in our history. We minimize the seriousness of the events when we loosely toss around these insults.

We should study history and understand it, unless we wish to be doomed to repeat it.

There is often a reaction of disdain or hostility when you suggest, to people, to read books with opposing viewpoints to their own.

Reading books that do not align with your political, religious, or philosophical views is extremely important. But why?

Gaining the knowledge and perspective of your opposition is beneficial in a couple of different ways. For one, understanding opposing arguments will allow you to fortify a rebuttal during a debate. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to refute something that you do not fully understand.

If debate is of no interest to you, then reading opposing viewpoints will allow you to strengthen your own beliefs– or change them. What’s a belief if it cannot endure rigorous questioning?

Much like going to the gym and lifting weights will build physical strength, reading congruent, as well as opposing, viewpoints will increase your mental power.

Widened observation is a necessary ingredient in the recipe of evolution; it’s how we grow as a species.

There’s indeed a potential societal benefit to reading and understanding different perspectives that goes beyond the fortification of belief structure and political/philosophical/scientific debate.

The simple gesture of taking the time to see through the eyes of another person may pacify the building tension (often unjustified) that is pervasive throughout the world.

There are, inevitably, ideas that you will find no reconciliation with, or tolerance for. It is imperative, then, to understand the intricacies of these philosophies if you intend to oppose them.

Books are a window into the mind of another person. And if you oppose that person’s philosophy, reading their books is like finding a map to a buried treasure; they’re giving you all of their secrets and strategies. In short, “know thy adversary.”

The quest for knowledge cannot be obstructed by arrogance or preference. Gaining multiple perspectives is absolutely essential to expanding the mind.

Question Authority? You may have heard this slogan thrown around before, but what does it actually mean? What are people encouraging you to do when they say to question authority?

Every aspect of authority must be analyzed and questioned. From National Leaders to the Vatican, Kings, Professors, Doctors, Parents, Science, Religion, the Police, and everything in between.

This doesn’t mean you should act like a brat and be disrespectful to those who are in positions of authority. You should always maintain your composure, your dignity and be cordial wherever applicable. Nay, the idea to question authority is much more profound than a simple knee-jerk, entitled response.

The ultimate quest for human kind is to understand the meaning of life, why we are here, and if possible, how it all came to be; the pursuit of true and absolute knowledge.

The path we’ve been paving since the dawn of civilization has been fueled by this initiative. Every monument to our progress is an achievement towards this ultimate goal that we collectively chase as a species.

Such a quest demands free thinking, the freedom to explore new ideas and to test theories.

On this road to understanding who we are and why we are here, there have been multiple blockades that have attempted to hinder the chariots of progress. All of which have failed to cease the quest completely, but nevertheless, it required enormous effort to combat them.

Questioning authority doesn’t mean to reply in a childish manner with “why” every time your parents or a police officer asks you to do something within reason.

Questioning authority is carefully examining those in power and assessing if what they’re saying or doing is precluding the quest for knowledge and/or is factual or misleading.

Such preclusion varies in form. This could be a militant police state oppressing its citizens into submission which inhibits the free exchange of ideas. It could be religious leaders telling you that the earth was made in 7 days, or even scientists who allow their biases to alter their published findings.

Sometimes questioning can lead to confrontation that would require civil disobedience; other times the situation can prove to be resolved with a public expose` or peaceful assembly. Some extreme cases could result in war. In any event, we must be brave and always question authority.

Everything must be questioned in order to be pursuant of the quest for knowledge and understanding, especially authority; which possesses the greatest threat to derail our progress as human beings.

It is a growing trend to see people on social media evidently enraged by the fact that the news media spews garbage that nobody wants to see. Everyone apparently hates whatever it is that they see on the news and on social media, and they’re tired of seeing it when they log onto Facebook.

“If you don’t read the newspaper, then you’re uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, then you’re misinformed” –Mark Twain

If so many people cannot tolerate the grotesque, violent, insidious nature of the media, then why does the media keep peddling the rubbish?

Some people believe that journalism is all about being watchdogs for the community, as if they serve an inherent obligation to humanity to report the truth. They believe that exposure to the public should lead to justice as if the enemy has been revealed from beyond the veil of shadows. If you do not report objectively, then you are a troll and a miscreant, and you’ve destroyed your own journalistic integrity.

Others believe that the media is all about corporations buying the government and distracting the population so that they can keep people in a state of servitude. They are just “distracting us” from the big picture with petty nonsense so those few in power can lead us away from salvation. While keeping us so unfocused with this mass misdirection, they’re able to get away with anything they want.

While there might be some truth to either of these assessments, both are not true in its entirety. The real reality is that the news is all about selling advertisements. It’s a business, nothing else. That’s the end game of all that is said and done.

When people bitch about the media committing a horrid misdeed by reporting violence, avarice, hatred, riots, chaos, disorder, death and murder, they only have themselves to thank for it. The media is showing consumers what they want to see.

The media will only deliver information that keeps you engaged. If it does not attract viewers, it won’t air. The human attention span is an average of 12 seconds long, maxing at about 90 seconds. This is why the pieces you see are usually short and sensational and most importantly controversial.

The more people they can get to watch for a longer period of time, the more money they make by selling space to advertisers. That is the only true purpose of the media. This is why media has divided itself into left-wing and right-wing channels. It’s easier for them to show relevant content, which makes them more profit.

If humanity did not crave destruction and total chaos, then the news would not show it, because they could not make money from it. It’s as simple as that.

Independent journals do exist where there are real issues being debated, real facts being reported. However, you do not see them because nobody cares enough. There isn’t much of a market for sensible and reasoned discussion where everyone comes to a conclusion based on facts and logic.

If the owners of small indie presses want to ever play in the big leagues, they have to deliver the content people thrive on: disease, betrayal, hardship, violence, scandal, conspiracy, death, and murder.

On Social Media, there is a metric called Post Engagement. These are algorithms used to determine what shows up in your news feeds.

The reason you’re not seeing the deep intellectual inspiring posts about exposing government lies and the true path to human liberation is because not enough people are engaging in those posts. Everyone else online is busy engaging with the nonsensical, moronic, fly-by-night drivel fit for imbeciles.

The news is not objective because people are not objective. People are filled with knee-jerk, hatred, and anger. They are the emotional, subjective, unreasonable, melodramatic, inflammatory masses yearning to be entertained by the lowest grade horeshit and blinded by rhetoric.

Yes, we know most readers at Epicdelusion do not fit this description. You may be reading this article getting pissed at me because you know you’re not part of that easily swindled group-thinking mob. Good, that’s a step in the right direction. If you genuinely despise the mainstream media, then you genuinely despise society.

The truth is that humanity is why the media exists the way it does, not the other way around.

When we hear about Anti-War protesting many people will immediately conjure images of hippies waving peace signs. But are “hippies” the only ones who are against war? Hippies are great in my opinion, but they’re not the only ones who are against war.

First off, I’m a realistic person and a free thinker who understands that conflict happens and that measures beyond peaceful action are sometimes necessary.

War, conflict, and fighting is natural to humans. We fight to live. We fight to survive. We have what is known as a “fight or flight” instinct that has been hardwired in our brains for centuries. And it’s there for a reason.

But is war what we want in a civilized society? The answer is no. Most people agree that the ideal condition is to not live in a war-torn nation or a nation that is at war.

It may seem that angry, jingoist Americans are always after a war, and some even say that they do want war. But their story would change if there were tanks rolling down their street when they were trying to get their kid on the bus for school.

Peace is the ideal setting. Although we fight and we struggle, humans also instinctively rely on equilibrium. The equilibrium is order and cooperation; something which can be observed even at the cellular & microbial level.

As a business owner and someone who believes in free trade, I don’t see war as being economically viable. In fact, Nobel prize winning economists agree that war is bad for the economy.

We all want to live in peace. And there’s nothing unmanly or weak about confessing that you want to enjoy your peace and quiet, or speak up when that peace is threatened by war-like actions perpetrated by our leaders.

People from all walks of life dislike war. I’ve talked to devoutly religious fundamentalist conservatives who were against war. It’s not just a “leftist” or “hippie” thing. Peace should be something we all work towards.

So the next time you think about what an anti-war advocate looks like, take a peek in a mirror, because you’ll likely be looking at one when you do.

Now that all of your friends, your family, your boss, random people you meet at the bar, and the hoi polloi you went to high school with are on your friend list, you’re bound to see political posts you disagree with.

Not everyone is as intelligent and sophisticated as you are. Some people are “stupid” or “bigoted” or “have no compassion” or they’re “republiturds” or “libtards” or whatever else. They’re clearly unfit to occupy space on your news feed.

So the obvious course of action to dealing with these morons who disagree with you is to unfollow them. If they are particularly horrid individuals who don’t believe the same exact things as you do, then you can even unfriend them!

Right?

Well, before you proceed to click that unfriend button remember just one thing, you need controversy in your life. You need to be exposed to different opinions and different ideas. Likewise, these people need controversy from you as well.

Even if these people seem like they are complete offensive dolts, keep them around anyway. Delve into their way of thinking so you can better understand their side of the political train wreck. It will help you better understand yourself.

Yeah, there will always be some obnoxious troll who you will not get through to, it happens, welcome to planet earth. Ignore them and move along because they’re not genuine. However, not everyone who disagrees with your point of view is a troll. They could just be, you know, thinking differently than the way that you do, which is fine.

Do not block your adversaries from your life when they’re offering you free insight into the way they see the world. You may think you always need to be sheltered from what they’re saying or that you always need to be near more like-minded folks, but that rarely leads to personal growth in the end.

“A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.”
― Baltasar Gracián

Not only should you know exactly what your political enemies are thinking, you should always investigate what you believe as well.

Even the most modestly intelligent people among us can still expose you to new content that changes your perspective. Likewise, you can expose them to new information too. If you unfriend everyone who disagrees with your politics, then you are undoubtedly creating an ideological echo-chamber where all you will hear is praise and harmony. In other words, you’re not being challenged.

While it’s good to have camaraderie, the constant praise and harmony will weaken you. So don’t click unfriend. Just learn to accept that other people exist who will disagree with you, even if they seem to be helpless imbeciles. If you’re lucky, you can catch someone who disagrees with your politics who is willing to have a civilized debate with you.

I personally love the opportunity to have an intelligent debate with someone who sees the world differently than I see it. It’s a rare treat, but it can happen on social media. Most of the time it’s difficult to get through that huge blockade of bullshit when it comes to politics, so when you do get that chance, take advantage of it.

You are, in a sense, infiltrating the enemy camp. Just make sure you keep your ego in check. Don’t go into a debate with the urge to win. Enter with the urge to understand as well as be understood. Consider their points and be cordial.

I have left many, many debates with a new perspective or at least the nagging desire to dig further into what they were talking about. It is a good sign if you have books piling up in your room all because you either lost a debate or someone made you think. There is never any shame in losing when it leads to self-improvement. Debates have prompted me to expose myself to countless pieces of literature, and my journey for knowledge will not willingly cease to happen.

Political ‘Freethinking’ is, unfortunately, a philosophy that is not commonly known or understood fully.

Freethinking is, simply put, holding the position that reason, logic, evidence and objective analysis should supersede authority that is based on tradition, religious canonization, or dogmatic ideology.

In addition, and in modern terms, political freethinking attempts to thwart the left-right dichotomy and transcend partisanship through a rigorous effort of exhibiting critical, evidence-based thinking, free of external manipulation.

This premise is challenging as political currents have a tendency to pull individuals into collective bodies of thought.

For example, a conservative Republican who has a specific progressive idea (such as minimum wage increase) has a propensity to abandon or passively ignore the belief, in order to align more wholly with the group.

Conversely, a progressive Democrat who holds a belief that is thought to be more conservative (such as adhering to 2nd amendment principles) is more likely to conceal their stance on guns because it challenges progressive orthodoxy and they may fear being mocked or ridiculed.

This behavior reverts back to an evolutionary pattern (seen in early human tribalism) where an individual follows the pack in order to ensure their survival. Upsetting the herd would risk, to the individual, becoming an outcast, thus reducing their chances at eating, mating etc.

We refer to this as the ‘Hive Mind‘; the notion that complexities should be simplified and participants should work collectively in order to achieve the greatest possible outcome; targeting the ultimate goal of the hive.

In terms of evolution and outcomes (such as in business), there is proposed benefits of collective or ‘hive mind’ behavior, as published by the Oxford Saïd Review.

In politics, the hive mind concept is largely criticized as having an overtly socialistic foundation that, while theoretically utopian, inadvertently leads to authoritarianism.

A popular satire and critique of Stalinism (the hive mind) is George Orwell’s 1984, which takes us into a sensationalized, albeit strangely realistic, world of horrific totalitarianism.

Freethinking doesn’t necessarily aim to diametrically oppose a ‘greater outcome’ theory, however, challenges the methodology of obtaining such results.

Humans are not intrinsically individualistic or collectivist, but rather possess elements of both simultaneously. In essence this is the great human schism, the birth of politics and the impossible question: “how should we govern?”

The freethinker attempts to answer that question through deep contemplation utilizing carefully analysed data, intrepid reasoning and objectivity whilst maintaining a realistic, although troubling, viewpoint that there is no ubiquitously satisfying conclusion.

The art of Political Freethinking evolves into a mastered state when the individual exhibits the ability to study various political theory and questions not only the beliefs of others, but their own beliefs as well.

Try this: sit in a room by yourself. Turn off the world around you; no tv, no phones, no music, nothing, just you and the silent darkness. Clear your mind, try to erase all previously established beliefs, then ask yourself some questions. (Preferably highly controversial questions.) Be 100% honest with your answers. Turn on the lights, write down the answers you gave with the intention that you will never show another living soul your responses (this allows you to be fully honest because there is no fear of criticism.)

See how, or if at all, your responses change from when you were alone to when you are in pubic or being observed.

This is the art of freethinking: to think for yourself and to arrive to conclusions by rigorously questioning established ideas, schools of thought as well as the beliefs you currently possess.